3D printer gives cancer victim a new ankle

An ankle created using a 3D printer has replaced a cancer victim's joint in a world-first operation that many are suggesting is just the beginning of a medical technology revolution.

Transcript

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LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Advances in 3D technology have had a major impact in almost every walk of life, on everything from TV's to houses to cars.

Until now though, the medical fraternity has largely been sceptical.

But that looks set to change after surgeons in Melbourne performed a world-first operation in which they used a 3D printer to save a man's cancer-riddled heel.

Greg Goy has the story.

GREG HOY, REPORTER: He was an interesting choice as a world-first test case. Aged 71, builder Len Chandler had survived prostate cancer, two knee replacements and lost an eye on a building site before doctors told him he had a cancer-riddled heel and would have to lose his leg.

LEN CHANDLER: I think the wife was more upset than I was. She was crying, but I thought, "Oh, you know, if I've got to do it, I'll do it."

GREG HOY: Len Chandler's luck changed remarkably, however, when he was sent to see orthopaedic surgeon Professor Peter Choong of St Vincent's in Melbourne.

LEN CHANDLER: And then he sat at the computer there for about three minutes and never said a word and I thought, "What's going on?" And he said, "Oh, I've got some mates in CSIRO." He said, "I'll ring them." He said, "We might be able to put a - titanium foot in."

GREG HOY: With the help of Melbourne technologists Anatomics, the CSIRO set about hurriedly building an intricate replica of Len Chandler's ankle bone out of titanium by using a 3D printer.

PETER CHOONG, SURGEON, ST VINCENT'S MELBOURNE: We had to make something that was not too heavy. It sits in a very precarious position that unites a number of joints in the foot. We also had to make sure that it was designed in such a way that we could suture to it some ligaments that exist around the ankle and foot to give it the sort of stability it would need.

GREG HOY: Straight onto the metal?

PETER CHOONG: Correct.

JOHN BARNES, CSIRO ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING: Well, it began on a Monday and by Thursday we delivered the "semi-finished final version" to Anatomics. They did the preparatory work on it, sterilised it and provided it to Dr Choong on Friday for the operation.

GREG HOY: It's the now 14 weeks since the surgery. Both the patient and surgeon are delighted with the results.

LEN CHANDLER: And I think it's not hurting, so why - you've got to feel your way, the same as anything else.

PETER CHOONG: Well the surgery went very well. There were no issues related to this. His progress has been excellent.

GREG HOY: Another day, another milestone in the remarkable advance of 3D printing, where the future is limited only, it seems, by the imagination of experts.

PETER CHOONG: 3D printing offers an amazing future for medicine. We have always been frustrated at getting something small enough, fine enough, using what has been a manufacturing process that has remained fairly stable for perhaps the last century or so.

GREG HOY: The 3D revolution is advancing on multiple fronts. At an exhibition in Chicago this month, US company Local Motors unveiled its 3D-printed car.

JAMES EARL, ENGINEER, LOCAL MOTORS: The thing that this lends most to is customisability, so you can get a car that really suits your needs.

GREG HOY: Also in the US, they are now printing with living cell structures and are making great progress in the bid to print human organs complete with tiny blood vessels.

ANTHONY ATALIA, WAKE FOREST INSTITUTE: And we're creating ears in the project we're doing right now with the military to provide these kinds of structures to our injured warriors.

GREG HOY: Across town from St Vincent's, meantime, at the RMIT MicroNano Research Facility, scientists are using another revolutionary type of 3D printer to build objects so tiny, they are invisible to the human eye.

What are we seeing here and on what scale?

SHARATH SRIRAM, MICRONANO RESEARCH FACILITY, RMIT: So this is an example of a three-dimensionally-printed prancing horse. The height of the structure is about 70 micrometres.

GREG HOY: Which is equivalent to?

SHARATH SRIRAM: Which is about half the thickness of a human hair.

GREG HOY: Researchers are using this technology to develop micro robots like this that will travel through the blood system to clear blocked arteries and for targeted drug delivery. Amazingly, they are also researching new fabrics that deflect and manipulate light to make invisible clothing or objects.

SHARATH SRIRAM: A 3D printer will allow you to build structures which are invisible at different wavelengths into one composite material.

GREG HOY: From invisible clothing to haute couture, today 3D printing is also shaking up the fashion world on the catwalks in Paris.

NEDRI OXMAN, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: You can now print continuous surfaces without seams or without parts and they're just gradients - almost like gradients of energy, only gradients of material.

GREG HOY: This raises the prospect of people having their bodies scanned to order garments that are perfectly tailor-made with a 3D printer.

WOMAN: Obviously, it's taking designers to a new level of things that have never been done before and it's just the beginning, so I think the imagination is - would make the limit because, you know, it's endless, endless possibility.

GREG HOY: Other advances abound. The next generation of NASA's Space Exploration Vehicle has 70 unique 3D-printed parts to maximise mobility. The Chinese are even developing huge 3D printers to build small houses.

JOHN BARNES: We just don't where it's going to end. I think its impact is going to be so widespread that it's going to be very commonplace.